This back-and-forth is part of the much larger exchange of tweets we’ve seen about the upcoming Blade Flurry changes in Patch 5.2, which started out as a flat 75% copied-damage reduction and currently stands as a 60% reduction that will now apply to as many as four nearby targets instead of just one.

The final point Ghostcrawler makes in the exchange above raises what, for me, is an intriguing question over how important it is that our three rogue specs have different rotations. Combat’s upcoming Blade Flurry changes will further entrench three surprisingly different AoE damage approaches for the three specs:

Assassination: Fan of Knives + Tab-Rupture (keeping the bleed on multiple targets to maximize energy regen for more FoKs)

I realize there’s room for debate over the optimal AoE “rotation” for Assassination (i.e., whether/when Slice and Dice and Envenom should come into play), but we’re still talking three distinct approaches. If making the rogue specs “feel” different in multi-target situations was a design goal, 5.2 will mark a huge success.

The ultimate rogue rotation: Set it and forget it!

But I’m going to play devil’s advocate here, and ask: What’s the point of this success? (I had originally written a paragraph here arguing that the three specs have distinctly different single-target rotations as well, but it got too bogged down in specifics and I drifted away from this central question, so I may save that for another day.) Why is it so important that the rogue *rotations* — be they single-target or multi-target — be different from spec to spec? How is that a valuable intrinsic quality of the class?

I realize there are a fair number — maybe even a large number — of rogue players out there who are steadfastly loyal to a particular spec. Whether it’s the playstyle or the (loosely associated) lore, they identify themselves by the spec as much as the class as a whole. They’re not just rogues — they’re *Combat* (or Mut, or Sub) rogues.

But what is it that makes a *player* a Combat (or whatever) rogue? If you ask players to list the qualities of their favorite spec, how many will focus on mechanics — the ability to toggle Killing Spree, the fun of using Shadow Dance, the sheer thrill that comes with the knowledge that 40% of your damage comes passively from Deadly Poison? (Sorry, sorry — couldn’t help it. Assassination is actually my favorite spec.)

Or is the answer to the question a little more emotional, more aesthetic, than that? I don’t prefer Assassination because I think Envenom is a clever way to actively increase our passive damage (oops, paradox) and separate less-skilled players from more skilled players. (Actually, I think Assassination fails to deliver on that front, but that’s another topic.) Or because I like the incorporation of Rupture for energy regen. Or because I think Vendetta is a fun cooldown. Or because of *any* particular ability or talent.

Assassination: Little. Yellow. Different.

No, I like Assassination the most because it “feels” different. Mutilate is the most expensive CP builder we have; as a result, Assassination has the slowest rotation by far, because a chunk of time is often spent waiting for energy to regen so we can Mutilate again. And I *like* that. It gives me time to look at what’s happening in the raid around me, to think more about where I’m standing and where I should be standing (and where I’ll need to be standing in a few seconds). I’ve always felt that the weaving of Mutilates, well-timed Envenoms and Ruptures makes the Assassination rotation feel like a dance — ironic, since Subtlety is the spec that actually has a (Shadow) Dance in it.

But despite that, I don’t consider myself an “Assassination rogue.” If the Assassination spec were to lose that “dance” feel, I wouldn’t suddenly stop playing the class. I’m a WoW player who enjoys playing a rogue more than other classes primarily because of the stealth/strategy component, not because of how particular mechanics play. And I worry that, if Blizzard devs continue to prioritize efforts to define and balance what essentially is three distinct rogue *classes* — each with its own unique mechanics — that we’re not going to get back to a place where rogues as a whole feel fresh and distinct. We can’t, because we’re too busy trying to tease out what’s fresh and distinct between each individual spec — as well as maintaining balance not only between the three rogue specs, but between rogues and other classes on the whole.

I’m not sure whether this makes me a fan of the idea of having only a single rogue DPS spec for the entire class, or whether it just means I wish that aesthetics, not mechanics, could be all that truly defines the differences between the specs. (Combat’s unique ability to dual-wield slow weapons would be one example here.) I just know that I’m not comfortable with the idea that each rogue spec has to have its mechanical niche. I worry that class design and balance suffer as a result.

13 Responses

I think most of the problem is a systemic problem with the game. So many spells and abilities, every melee has an interrupt, and every other class needs a stun. Specs have become classes. I wouldn’t mind it so much of rogues were treated as a class with minor differences between specs so much if other class/spec weren’t given so much parity with rogues on top of spec distinction, parity and role.

I think the design of hybrid classes have eclipsed the function of spec. Not to mention just the sheer problem that having 30 something classes brings to anything like balance. Either pure classes need a strong spec distinction, need to be hybridized, or they need to perform better.

On my BF video, one of the things that I was careful to highlight was what exactly is the difference between standard aoe and cleave for combat. My the conclusion I came to is there isn’t. BF was overpowered. Isn’t that ok for a class that is supposed to do damage and brings very little else to the table?

The solution to spec switching isn’t to nerf BF, it is to beef up cleave and aoe for all the specs. I don’t think that there should be a spec design of “single target”, “cleave” and “aoe” spec. The classes that are good at cleave are all hybrids, Why do hybrids get a free pass on single target, cleave and aoe damage while rogue must pick choose a spec for each domain? Itsa design that will only result in movement away from the class without competing factors and we don’t have those factors.

People wonder why rogue have low population, and for me its pretty much clear cut. The design of hybrid dps specs are wholistic, They are designed with the expectation to perform well under multiple circumstances, while rogues have to choose a spec for it? And that’s on top of role selection and raid utility. It’s not rocket science. Why choose to do less if you can do more?

The only people who play rogues are players that really value the stealth theme. Either you need to make stealth gameplay more appealing, make each rogue spec just as multifunctional as the best hybrids, give rogues great raid utility, or give the class another role.

And I’d say you need to do all of the above before you see a significant number of player switching to play rogue mains.

At the risk of having this convo drift off topic: If rogues are unpopular because hybrids bring so much to the table, then why do hunters and mages not suffer from a popularity issue? I have trouble buying the “rogues are too restrictive” argument as an explanation for how few people desire to play the class.

This tails back into my post above (woohoo!). I think if you improve the aesthetics and the feel of the class, you’ll increase the desire of the average player to play it, regardless of whether you’re creating additional spec definition or you’re wiping out all three specs entirely and just having a single “rogue” spec (perhaps relying on talents and glyphs to provide role definition)

Do ranged ever have a hard time competing? Most of the ranged dps are pures, The enjoy strong performance consistently. Hunters are about the easiest class in the game, and the classes (and even specs) all have really strong themes and all of them bring good utility.

Lets look at it from a numbers perspective. Just looking at the class colors in a raid. 3 ranged pures and 3 ranged hybrids. Contrast that with 6 hybrid melee and 1 pure melee. Even if representation were completely equal, any player that may be considering switching classes to a melee by random chance is going to pick a hybrid over a pure melee, where the chance is about 50% for ranged.

Atleast that is how I think of it. That of a player lookin at recount and thinking, “You know, maybe I should try a new class”. He/she then see 7 different melee all performing about the same. They are just going to go be other factors, or at worst random chance, and rogues don’t have chance on our side or those other really compelling factors.

We have stealth and its really freaking awesome, until you start leveling and realize that you have to run around constantly between mobs, instead of tapping them from 40 yards, yanking them to you from the nether or charging in at lightening speed. (Which is why I like the new Cloak and Dagger so much.) You don’t glow with holy coolness or send out bolts of lightening all over the place and summon elementals to your aid. And you can’t heal your buddy or tank for them.

I really, really, really, really love the class. But it can’t compete with that. We get knocked out of stealth by random aoes and common trinket procs for christ sake. Our class defining feature has so many bugs and counters and caveats that it is a running joke. The start of an expansion is always what wonderful new bugs are breaking stealth now?

Short of a complete redesign in an expansion patch, the current situation is unavoidable if you want each spec to be viable for PvE. The only way to diversify the specs now would be to add the same kind of complexity and unique attributes back into them that made them arduous to balance before.

If that’s even possible now, after how much was gutted in the talent changes.

Kind of funny; I haven’t played in a month and this still makes me furious.

I like the talent system changes — or, at least, the idea behind them. We’ve talked about spec homogenization a lot, and I agree with you. But I don’t know that I agree that the greater spec definition we previously had was all that desirable.

Extra Credits just did a great episode on depth vs. complexity, and summarized it by saying you should aim for the greatest amount of depth with the least amount of complexity…

…with depth being the range of player choices in any given situation, and complexity being the amount of information the player has to keep in their head at any given time to respond to those situations.

Imagine it like an x-y axis between simplicity and complexity, and shallowness and depth. PvE rogues are distinctly in the simple and shallow corner; you can play the class competitively with 4 if-then statements.

Which makes me think one of two things:

1) We’ve been reduced to the lowest common denominator so Blizzard can build the class back up (when they get to it), adding more depth, some complexity, and much better specialization aesthetics.

2) Blizzard is avoiding PvE class depth and complexity since it exponentially complicates PvP, and is aiming instead for more complex/challenging boss encounters in PvE with simpler and shallower class expectations.

The first is what I hope is happening. The second is probably actually true.

If there was any doubt you’re a WoW veteran, V, your suggestion that rogues are simple and shallow — despite a spellbook containing dozens of abilities — would erase it. :)

In my opinion, rogues as a class, and WoW as a whole, have a *tremendous* amount of both complexity and depth. Too much. As just one example, I have, depending on the situation and talent build, any of NINE ways to stop a caster from casting a spell: Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, Kick, Gouge, Blind, Paralytic Poison, Deadly Throw, Smoke Bomb and Garrote. Which of those to use at which time depends on a stunningly intricate number of factors. The “skill cap” in rogue PvP — and, to a much lesser extent, PvE — is determined by whether a player is able to digest this dizzying array of spell options and the best possible times to use them, and then execute those moves wisely and efficiently as needed.

I think if a person were relatively new to the game and looked at your rundown of how simple rogue DPS ability choice was, they would likely be overwhelmed. We learn abilities, we learn their use, we learn their situational value, we learn their acronyms, we learn how they interrelate and enhance one another — and once we’ve mastered them, they seem simple to us. But that doesn’t make them simple. I think the level of depth and complexity in WoW at the moment — a level that only increases with each expansion — makes each attempt to rebalance specs and classes more challenging and more convoluted.

I do nothing in Rift except quest. Their spec system can get very complicated, but I’m using a preset soul build designed by the developers. So, optimal or not, it reflects their design intent for the class.

It’s also exceedingly similar to a WoW rogue.
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There are three openers:

(Rift caps at 5 combo points, like WoW.)
(There’s no overflow mechanic like anticipation that I know of.)
(The combo points stack on the rogue and don’t decay.)

1 – You always want to use an opener.
2 – Which one you use depends on the situation.
3 – You can choose to use slip away (vanish) for another opener.
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Second consideration is from a talent in the riftstalker tree that gives you +15% damage and healing for 10 seconds after plane shifting. There are multiple plane shifting abilities in the riftstalker tree but my build has 2:

This lets you gain +15% damage for 20 seconds out of every 45. But they’re also key mobility abilities, so it’s a choice between utility and DPS (like when shadowstep increased ambush damage).
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Next there are 4 more generic combo-point builders.

So: savage strike is your filler ability, serpent strike when it procs, puncture every 10 seconds for the bleed, and backstab when you can.
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Finishers are much simpler:

Final Blow (eviscerate), 16 energy, deals 5% more damage if attacking from behind. Deals 20% more damage if the target is impaled.

Impale (rupture), 16 energy: bleeds for roughly 2-2.5x the damage of final blow over the next 20 seconds. Increases the damage of final blow.
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And another ability:

Expose Weakness (not WoW-related), 10 energy, 20 second CD: increases the damage of your next 20 attacks by a set amount.

After a certain point this is automatically applied by Final Blow without the CD, but you can still use it from stealth before engaging a target.
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And there’s multiple passive abilities that come into play:

(All four of these have no ICD, and can refresh themselves indefinitely.)

Lethal Poison: increases the target’s chance to be crit by 5%.

Planar Boost: Using a Combo Point generating ability that gives the 5th Combo Point or when you already have 5 Combo Points adds a buff, increasing damage done by 2%. Lasts 30s. Stacks up to 5 times.

Serrated Blades: Your melee weapon abilities have a 40% chance to cause the target to bleed for 60% of your weapon’s damage over 6 seconds. Can be applied up to 3 times.

Poison Malice (no WoW equivalent), 10 energy, 2 minute CD: increases poison damage (including serpent strike) by 100% for 15 seconds. This also deals poison damage to attackers, but that’s for questing/soloing.
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Obvious weakness: no AoE, although combo points on the rogue make putting bleeds on multiple targets at once a very simple exercise.

Another is the scaling damage mechanics, but they’re rather quick (and countered by the +15% damage bonus from using a stealth opener).
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Obvious bulletpoint: no slice and dice. I don’t have a DPS meter, but passive damage seems to be significantly low compared to WoW.
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Ranged: some simple ranged capabilities from the ranger soul, two combo point builders (one a bleed) and a weak finisher. But no talents supporting their damage, so they’re weaker than melee abilities.
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Survivability: Guardian Phase, which is basically a tanking stance for riftstalkers that reduces your damage by 30%. Enduring Brew restores 2-5K health (depends on a crit) with a 60 second cooldown.

Two other riftstalker abilities are phantom blow (combo point builder, reduces damage taken by 2% for 20 seconds) and guarded steel (finisher, increases armor by 10% for 30 seconds).

Both are tanking abilities though, and cause additional threat.
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Anyway, I meant to draw four points from this.

1 – Little passive damage; more room between the skill cap and floor.
2 – Importance of openers and choice of which to use.
3 – Deciding to use abilities for utility or DPS (slip away, phase shifting).
4 – Fluctuating relative priority of combo point builders.

WoW just has a memorized priority system that you can do in your sleep. But WoW also requires more attention to external mechanics than Rift.

But I like this system, because it interrelates -different- choice systems. Instead of completely differentiated priority systems that never change.
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Oh yeah, and I forgot Thread of Death: 10 energy, 30 second CD: lets you use any one stealth ability out of stealth in the next 5 seconds.

Basically a mini-shadowdance, and another choice between utility and DPS which lets you use an opener every 30 seconds. Which I forgot.

Really need to put that on my bar…
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Anyway, that’s a kind of comparison about why I see WoW rogues are being kind of… herp-a-derpish. To a rather frustrating degree.

Especially since WoW used to have mechanics similar to these, which added at least a little depth and complexity to what you were doing.

But from what I hear, Rift’s boss fights are much simpler to execute. So it’s a sliding scale of where the game’s depth and complexity lies.

Can’t reply to vere’s post, but isn’t that whole list of abilities exactly the definition of complexity without depth? Its one of things I’ve noted about other wow clones is that they all start off with too many abilities, and that’s before you realize that the design has no room to grow.

I think if you can’t play a class with less than 12 or so abilities, you’ve stepped into bloat territory. The focus should be on fun mechanics for the class and fun fight mechanics. This whole notion of rotation that wow has is something that needs to do away. How to do optimal damage should be obvious to the player.

What should not be so obvious is when to use your limited resources and abilities to counter what is going on in the game world. Imagine if healers could only really keep one person alive under heavy damage or spot heal a few players at a time? What if all classes had to use resources for a stun instead of damage like a rogue. What if they had to sacrifie more than a cast time or gcd to heal themselves. That’s tension, that’s decision making, that’s fun.

Just look at the forum, everyone’s solution is to add another cooldown or boost another cooldown, this is because the player doesn’t want to make the choice. The developers have to make them do it by design. And what do we get? Shadow Blades and leeching poison. This power creep and nothing but pure bloat.

Next expansion should focus on cleaning things up, fleshing on real resources systems and making players choose as much about which ability to use as they do when deciding which talent to pick.

The skill cap in PvP is definitely very high, I’m only talking about PvE where honestly we have too many redundant or useless abilities. Blizzard has separated everything we do into a different button, which means there’s little if any -choices- between using an ability for utility or damage.

Being overwhelmed by a large number of abilities which can be reduced to a simple sequence of if-then statements is high complexity, low depth. And once you memorize everything it shrinks from high complexity to low complexity since everything has a fixed point to be used if it’s used at all.

And honestly if the argument that players are overwhelmed holds any weight that’s Blizzard’s fault. You spend days of playtime leveling up, which is ALL TUTORIAL. If Blizzard can’t teach you how to play your class properly between 1 and 90 they seriously screwed up (which I admit, they did and do).

I went over to rift for a shirt while and the only reason it didn’t take off for me was the amount of time I had invested in my WoW chars and to an even bigger extent I actually didn’t like the graphics that much (i know its ironic..). But I played their equivalent of a warlock (wanted to try something different) and it had a lot of complexity that I did my best to narrow into a rotation, but it still had a lot of factors come into play that made any kind of sequencing difficult. I personally do not think WoW Rogues are that complex and the complexity added is just to try and make the spec less boring (combat), not to actually make you make a decision, but then I have played them for a long time, but rarely do you have to make hard choices on skills anymore. I’m not saying I don’t get things wrong, cause I do.

I think I might’ve overcomplicated myself, so just in summary: something doesn’t have to be really hard to be fun. But it should be engaging. I find Rift’s rotation to be very engaging, and WoW’s very boring.

Rift does this by taking simple, but different, systems, and combining them into a working whole. WoW rotations are too compartmentalized and distinct, the only real difference between any of them is the pace at which you hit buttons.

(I remember falling asleep during a boss fight once, waking up, and realizing I’d kept my rotation going by muscle-memory and was still at the top of the DPS meter; THAT SHOULD NOT BE REMOTELY POSSIBLE WHATSOEVER.)

In order to take the current specializations and add that sort of engagement you’d have to add complexity. Compared to a class redesign, where you could create three very easy specializations (which are not necessarily complex).

Basically, I think Blizzard should reduce the number of utility buttons on our bars and experiment with combining simple but different systems of class mechanics together while reducing our passive damage significantly.

But that runs into the issue that people have favorite specs, and redesigning them risks alienating your playerbase. So as long as rogues are putzing around without a drastic drop in population, I don’t expect significant changes.

So… it is what it is. A cost-benefit analysis from Blizzard’s point of view probably won’t induce any radical class changes, ever, for fear of alienating the entrenched rogue population that’s enamored of the class.

However…

I still this could be bypassed by combining assassination and subtlety (which would be easy as yawning), rebuilding combat a bit to differentiate it, and then introducing a brand new spec to the class that could be anything at all.